To connect Google Ads to Claudphic Ads CRM, go to Marketing → Google Ads Settings in your CRM sidebar and fill in five fields: your Customer ID, a developer token, an OAuth client ID, an OAuth client secret, and an OAuth refresh token. All five come from Google, not from us — this guide shows you exactly where to get each one, in the order you'll actually need them.
Before you start: Google Ads conversion tracking is included on the Growth and Scale plans. If your sidebar doesn't show a "Marketing" section with Google Ads links, you're on Starter or the free trial — the menu shows an "Upgrade to unlock" link instead, and there's nothing broken on your end. See our pricing page for what each plan includes.
What you're connecting, and why it needs five separate pieces
This isn't one login button, and it's worth understanding why before you start clicking around Google's side of this. A Google Ads API connection has to identify four different things at once: which Ads account you're writing to (Customer ID), which app is making the request (OAuth client), which app is allowed to use the Google Ads API at all (developer token), and which specific Google user granted permission (refresh token). Google keeps these separate on purpose, so that revoking one thing — say, a compromised OAuth app — doesn't force every connected account to re-authenticate everything.
Step 1: Find your Google Ads Customer ID
Sign in to ads.google.com with the
account that manages the campaigns you want tracked. Your Customer ID is the 10-digit number shown in
the top-right corner, formatted like 123-456-7890. In the CRM's Customer ID
field, enter it as digits only — no dashes. The field only accepts numbers, so a pasted dash will be
rejected by the form.
If you manage several accounts through a Google Ads manager (MCC) account and the account you want to track is a child account under it, there's a second, optional field: Login customer ID. Put the manager account's ID there and the tracked account's ID in Customer ID. If you're not sure whether you use a manager account, you almost certainly don't, and can leave that field blank.
Step 2: Get a developer token
The developer token identifies your application to the Google Ads API and is issued once per manager account, not per client account. From Google Ads, open Tools & Settings → Setup → API Center (you'll need a manager account to see this menu — if you only have a single standard account, create a free manager account first, it takes a few minutes and doesn't cost anything).
A newly issued token starts in test access, which only works against Google's test accounts, not real ones. To send real conversions you need basic access, which Google approves after a short application describing what your tool does — for a CRM sending offline conversions, describe it plainly: "CRM that uploads offline conversions (Won leads) back to Google Ads using the click ID captured at lead intake." Approval typically takes a few business days. Paste the approved token into the CRM's Developer token field.
Step 3: Create an OAuth client ID and secret
These come from Google Cloud Console, not Google Ads. Create a project (or use an existing one), then go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth client ID, choose Desktop app as the application type, and name it something you'll recognise later, like "Claudphic CRM". Google gives you a Client ID and Client secret immediately — copy both into the matching CRM fields.
You'll also need to enable the Google Ads API for this project: in the same console, go to APIs & Services → Library, search "Google Ads API", and click Enable.
Step 4: Generate a refresh token
This is the step people get stuck on, because it isn't a field you fill in on a form — it's a token you generate once through an OAuth consent flow and then store permanently. The simplest way, without writing any code, is Google's own OAuth 2.0 Playground:
- Open the OAuth Playground and click the gear icon (top right) → check "Use your own OAuth credentials" → paste in the Client ID and Client secret from Step 3.
- In the left panel, find Google Ads API v[latest] and select the scope
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords. - Click Authorize APIs, sign in with the Google account that has access to the Ads account you're connecting, and approve the consent screen.
- Back in the Playground, click Exchange authorization code for tokens. The Refresh token field on the right is what you need — copy the whole string.
Paste it into the CRM's OAuth refresh token field. Unlike the access token it produces behind the scenes, a refresh token does not expire on a schedule — it keeps working until you revoke access, change the account's password, or leave it completely unused for six months.
Step 5: Save, and confirm the connection actually works
Set Status to Active, leave Default currency as INR unless your Ads account bills in something else, and click Save. Saving clears any previously cached access token, so the very next sync re-authenticates from scratch using the credentials you just entered — if something above was wrong, that's when you'll find out, as a failed sync rather than a silent success.
Two things still need to happen before conversions actually reach Google Ads: creating conversion actions in Google Ads itself, and telling the CRM which pipeline stage should fire which action. That's covered in mapping conversion actions to your pipeline stages — do that next, or leads reaching "Won" in your pipeline won't report anywhere yet.
If it doesn't connect
The two failures worth knowing about in advance: an invalid or expired refresh token (usually from generating it under the wrong Google account, or the Ads account owner changing their password since), and a developer token still in test access — see why your Google Ads refresh token keeps failing for how to tell which one you're looking at and how to fix it.